Clinical Methods II- Health Care Services Locations and Settings

Admitting Office/Area

The administrative intake location where payment status, authorization, and eligibility for services at that facility are determined, and admission forms (insurance forms, Right to Privacy, Advanced Medical Directives) are completed prior to or at the time of admission

Ambulatory Care Clinic, Outpatient Clinic

Any area where outpatients are seen, which may be attached to or within the main facility or off site

Bed Service, Ward Service, Unit

The hospital beds or wards designated for inpatient admissions to a specialty (neurology, bed service, trauma ward, rehab unit)

Blood Bank

The area in the hospital's laboratory service where blood and blood products are kept, and blood chemistry panels and blood typing take place. Often hospitals share blood and blood products, and a central laboratory facility serves several hospitals

Burn Care Unit (BCU)

An intensive-care unit devoted to patients with burns; these units are found only in specially designated hospitals

Cardiac Care Unit (CCU)

An intensive-care unit devoted to patients with acute or critical cardiac disease.

Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit/Center/Program

An inpatient or output rehabilitation program devoted to patients who have undergone heart surgery or have chronic cardiac disease

Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility (CORF)

An outpatient facility that provides, at a minimum, physician services, PT, and social work or psychology services. Typically they also have SLP services and OT services for patients who require comprehensive rehabilitation

Day Surgery Center

A freestanding facility or part of a hospital facility where relatively minor elective surgeries are performed

Day Treatment Center (DTC), Day Treatment Facility (DTF)

A medical program or facility that provides comprehensive therapies for patients who do not require hospital or nursing facility admissions. include programs that provide comprehensive outpatient treatment for targeted groups (e.g., alcohol and drug abuse, AD day care programs)

Dialysis Unit

The area of the hospital or an outpatient clinic devoted to hemodialysis. Some hospitals have an inpatient unit (acute unit) for patients admitted to the hospital who require dialysis either due to acute renal dysfunction or chronic kidney disease, and a chronic unit for outpatient hemodialysis for chronic renal insufficiency

Emergency Department (ED), Emergency Room (ER)

The location and department of the hospital where patients with emergent, acute, or life-threatening illness or injuries are seen for treatment

Endoscopy Unit, Endo Lab

Usually the location for GI endoscopy and bronchoscopy studies

Episodic Care, Urgent Care Centers

Facilities or programs that provide limited emergency and on-call physician services. These centers are sometimes referred to condescendingly as "doc-in-the-box"

Extended Care Facility

A nursing home or residential center for individuals who require nursing care or supervision

File Room, Record Room

The area in the facility where paper medical records are kept. Access is usually restricted. Incomplete files (files missing signatures or documents) are usually kept separately in a "signature room" or medical records room

Geriatric Medicine Unit

A hospital bed service or ward devoted to admissions and transfers of elderly patients who require specialized care. These units are common in hospitals with a geriatric program or geriatricians on their staff

Home Health Agency/Program

A program and an agency that provides nursing, social, and rehabilitation services to patients in their homes

Hospice Program

A program that provides inpatient treatment, day treatment, or home health nursing; and counseling, social, and other support services to patients with known terminal illnesses, usually for an anticipated time period of up to 6 months

Hospital-Based Outpatient Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation services extended to patients seen in the hospital outpatient clinic facilities.

Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit

A hospital bed service or ward devoted to patients who require physical and other rehabilitation therapies. Those units are found in facilities where there are rehabilitation therapists and physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians (physiatrists) on staff

Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

A ward equipped with monitoring technology and staffed with specially trained nurses and support staff for managing life threatening, acute, and critical illness

Interventional Radiology

A subspecialty of radiology that utilizes imaged guided procedures to diagnose and treat diseases in a minimally invasive manner

Isolation Bed/Ward

A room or ward designated for admission or transfer of patients with contagious diseases, especially when the infectious process is airborne, or when the patient has a susceptibility for infections from others, for example, due to immune suppression therapies

Laboratory

the area in a medical facility where studies, such as blood, urine, and tissue analysis are conducted at the request of a physician or individuals with clinical privileges for ordering lab studies

Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU)

An intensive care unit devoted to the management of patients with acute or critical medical problems involving the internal organs, for example, hepatic coma

Medical and Surgical Hospital (Med-Surg Hospital)

A hospital with personnel and facilities to provide basic medical and surgical services

Morgue

the area in the hospital where postmortem anatomical examinations are made by the pathologist. Postmortem pathologic studies (autopsies) are sometimes required to determine the cause of death or factors that potentially contributed to the patient's demise

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

An intensive care unit devoted to critically ill neonates and infants

Nurses' Station

The area in an intensive care unit, hospital ward/unit, or clinic where the electronic medical records are accessed and where nurses conduct their electronic "charting" and monitor a patient's status with central monitors

Operating Room (OR)

The area of suite of rooms devoted to surgical procedures

Pain Center

The bed service or outpatient program devoted to the interdisciplinary management of chronic, debilitating pain syndromes

Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

The intensive care unit for children

Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU)

The surgical recovery room

Private Office

The clinical facility where health care professionals with private practices treat outpatients

Pulmonary Function Laboratory (PFL)

The area of the hospital equipped with instruments and stuffed with personnel trained to evaluate pulmonary status and functions. Invasive pulmonary studies, such as lung biopsy, are performed in the OR, outpatient surgical suite, or specially designed area within the place

Radiology Department/Unit/Clinic

An area in a hospital or freestanding clinic specially equipped with instruments and staffed with personnel trained in the use of various imaging techniques to diagnose disease

Recuperative Care Unit

A ward or bed service for patients who require a less acute level of care, but are not quite ready for transfer to a home, rehabilitation, home health care, or other program; includes "step down" units, intermediate care units, and the like

Respite Care

A brief inpatient or day treatment program that provides time-limited nursing and rehabilitation services mainly for the purpose of providing caregiver respite

Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF)

An extended care facility, or nursing home, for patients whose medical status requires continuous monitoring and skilled nursing services

Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU)

An intensive care unit for patients who remain critically ill following surgery or who need to have their vital signs closely monitored and require intensive nursing care before transferring to a room or ward

Surgical Recovery

The area adjacent to the operating room or day surgery suite where patients' vital signs are monitored following surgery and during recovery from anesthesia

Tertiary Care Facility

A facility capable of providing care to the critically ill patient or patient with complex medical conditions who requires specialized personnel and equipment

Transitional Care Unit (TCU), Subacute Care Unit (SACU), "Step Down" Unit

In some hospitals, a unit that is available for patients who no longer require the degree of continuous monitoring and nursing supervision found in an ICU, but are not yet sufficiently stable to be transferred to a standard ward

Ward/Unit

A single large room with multiple patient beds, or a designated wing or sections of a hospital floor with several adjacent patient rooms attached to a particular bed service or specialty (e.g., neurology ward, burn unit)

Ward Administration Desk

the ward secretary's desk